State shape: Minnesota is everywhere

Last week, we at BringMeTheNews were alerted to an odd shape up in the northland's vast forests: A 23-acre stand of red pine trees in the shape of Minnesota. It's tucked into the forests of Park Township in Lake of the Woods County.

Turns out it was the work of DNR forestry veteran Bill Lockner – in the late 1980s, way before Google Maps, and using only rudimentary tools, a compass and hip chain. BringMeTheNews reached out to Lockner, but he never returned our calls. You can read all the details right here.

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But it got us thinking – there are some other really cool (or kind of just funny) things we've found recently in the shape of Minnesota that are worth sharing.

Reddit user chiefs pointed us in the direction of a lake in Clarissa, Minnesota, that is – you guessed it – shaped like the state. Although you have to turn your head to see it here from satellite.

Sally McGraw, a freelance writer and blogger, put together a Minnesota-shaped (and Minnesota-themed) gift basket a few years back, and wrote about it in a post.

Then there's this photo of Old Man Winter himself, inhabiting the form of what appears to be his favorite state (considering he won't leave us alone). This photo was posted to Reddit more than a year ago, so it isn't from this season, or necessarily even taken in Minnesota. But it's pretty cool nonetheless.

And Facebook user Bryon Worth sent this to us over the weekend. He snapped the photo of this figure on his neighbor's garage roof in Maple Grove.

By the way, there's a word for this – when we see the shape or figure of something in where it doesn't actually exist. It's called pareidolia. The Atlantic wrote about this phenomenon a couple years ago, calling it the "bizarre bug of the human mind."